Out in the open ocean, they hatch into larvae
and become part of the vast plankton soup
And it's not just fish that depend on the whim of the open ocean to disperse their larvae
Land crabs and other crustaceans do too
But there's a deadline They each have a set number of days to reach new islands
Astonishingly,these larvae are able to home in on the smells and sounds of distant reefs
Out of the millions of larvae that set off only a small fraction will succeed in colonising new islands
Curiously, some freshwater fish also spawn at sea
and use the sea to help their larvae colonise rivers
These freshwater eels in the Solomons began their lives hundreds of miles away
possibly in a deep sea trench off New Guinea
Yet as larvae and then elvers,they made their way into these freshwater pools
and over 40 years,grew into two-metre giants